Quote:
Originally Posted by devilsadvocate
YouTube does HTML5 or h.264 or whatever protocol Jobs has been threatening Adobe with for the last however-long.
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HTML5 adds a <video></video> construct that can be used to embed video in a page without using Adobe Flash. But you still need a video codec, and that's where the fun begins. The first one out of the box was H.264, but that's based on patented technology with license fees to the patent holder. IBM, Apple, and Google paid the fees, so IE8/9, Safari, and Chrome can view HTML5 video. (I don't know offhand about Opera.) Mozilla did not, so Firefox does not support it. Mozilla code is open source, and Mozilla isn't including stuff they can't distribute in source form.
Google recently announced they are dropping H.264 support in Chrome, as several open source codecs have reached comparable levels of performance, and they want their Chromium product to ship with source for all components.
The main user of H.264 I'm aware of at the moment is YouTube, who use it in their beta HTML5 version. YouTube is owned by Google, so I expect that practice to change over time, especially when you can no longer use Chrome to watch HTML5 video on YouTube.
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Dennis